Peace Joy Love

My heart is filled with gratitude at the beginning of this Christmas Season; with Jessa and daddy snuggled into bed I thought I would write in my journal.  As we went to church today I didn't realize how full my heart would be and that the prayers I have often said in pleading with my Father in Heaven were answered today.  As a new Relief Society President came to be called in our ward Sister Erickson, I was excited to get to know her better.  For she has been acquainted with griefs and sorrow and is rock solid in her testimony.  She lost a baby at 18 months and though she doesn't speak of it, I admire how her faith has been placed more wholly on the Lord.  Today in Relief Society she gave the lesson calling it Peace Joy and Love.  Under each heading she listed four or five scriptures and as we read them together and discusses them my walls were broken down and opened to a greater trust in my Heavenly Father.  Too many times in the last two and a half years of our marriage we have had a lot of struggles and problems and we have to work hard to keep our marriage strong and united.

Some bad things happened in our marriage along the way and many times I have knelt in prayer begging Heavenly Father why had He, the One who is supposed to be my ultimate protector, how could He forsake me and allow me to go through times with trials that seemed unsurmountable; where I struggle to forgive and let go of the past.  I have prayed often pleading and begging with Heavenly Father to lighten my load to take away my trials and give me easier trials; at one point I even turned my back on Him, the Father and Creator of All, because I felt like He had forsaken me.  But I have realized through reading scriptures and Christian novels that no matter what happens in this life our relationship with God needs to be one that cannot falter and must be unshakable.  So this week I had prayed to come to Heavenly Father and full rely on Him, I asked again once more if He could just explain to me why I had to endure through what I had gone through and the answers came suddenly today with Sister. Erickson's lesson.  In John 16:33 it says, "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace.  In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."  I didn't realize all this time that trials would happen because God had promised that they would that we would have to endure them but I forgot to rely on the last part of this beautiful scripture but be of good cheer because I have overcome the world.  What a great way to start this Christmas season for me is to truly remember just how much Heavenly Father gave us by allowing Jesus Christ to come to the world.

And on the blessings flowed today in answer to my routine pleading, one sister spoke of her heartbreak and questioning to the Lord as she is struggling to get pregnant when it is a righteous desire and there are so many others who are pregnant around her.  Her husband taught her a lesson that I realized fits in with my prayer.  Sometimes we are given opportunities to some that might look like blessings but upon closer look or reflection could be their certain trial.  In reference to babies, some mothers get pregnant when they believe they are not ready to be a mother, or have a difficult birth that they did not expect, to face health challenges with their child, or have a child that is their trial.  And so this brought so closely back to my marriage.  Oh how I love my dear hubbins and I am so grateful for him but our marriage has been hard really hard and a lot of it had to do with my uncertainties and faltering faith when the difficult times arose in our marriage.  I am guilty of being the one like Job's wife to keep looking back and questioning why instead of accepting what occurred, turn to the Lord and rely on Him to fix my breaking heart.  So the last part of the lesson really struck home when Sister. Erickson bore her testimony.  In D&C 130:20-21 it says, "There is a law, irrevoacbly decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated-  And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to the law upon which it is predicated."  Sister Erickson went on to say and promise us that Heavenly Father must obey the laws because He is God, and if we are struggling to find the blessings in our lives or recognize them then we needed to open our scriptures and find which commandments must be obeyed in order to have those blessings because we need to be the best we can be.  So for my faltering faith and heart I can pray for a greater increase of love and faith in both my Father in Heaven and hubbins.

Does the Lord always answer our prayers in the way that we think they need them to be answered, no, but I promise He always will answer our prayers in His time when we are ready for the answer that He needs to give.

I want to bear my testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ here on the earth.  Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the world and he atoned for our sins so that not only can we be forgiven of our sins but also that he can succor us when we stand in need of succor.  I know that Jesus Christ was born of Mary and that it was through Christ's humble beginnings that He was able to understand why we stood in need of succor.  I know that Jesus Christ will redeem the world and come again on the morning of the first resurrection.  I know that God is real and a spiritual being and that we were created in His image.  I know that He loves us and wants to bless us with all the he has.  I know that the Christmas season is given to us to feel of the Saviour's love and celebrate his birth.  I know that President. Thomas S Monson is the prophet of the world and that he is directed by God Himself.  I know that Joseph Smith did see God the father, and Jesus Christ and was able to restore the gospel to the world by his obedience and faith and I say this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.